Carpets

Carpets (1): In the course of a visit he is making to Africa (accompanied by the hapless Stephen Black), the gentleman with the thistle-down hair's attention is drawn to a carpet offered for sale at a price of 20 silver pennies. As at that moment he is brooding over means to destroy Strange and Norrell he at once recalls that it is "possible, of course...to imprison someone in a carpet for a thousand years or so". He adds that he reserves this fate for those who have offended him deeply because it is, in his view, a particularly horrible one, usually resulting in the prisoner's complete madness[34].

Why madness should seem at all objectionable to the Gentleman is not explained.

Carpets (2): On her first meeting with Arabella StrangeLady Pole attempts to explain her enchanted situation to her, but as always the story that comes out is not the one her ladyship sets out to tell. In this case, she informs Mrs Strange of the remarkable adventure that befalls a Yorkshire gentleman named Redeshawe after he buys a Turkey carpet[27].